


i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

by seventhstar



Series: e.e. cummings series [3]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Drama, Established Relationship, Kidnapping, M/M, Memory Loss, Multi, Past Relationship(s), Post-Canon, Psychic Abilities, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 13:20:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4436963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhstar/pseuds/seventhstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story about jealousy, past and present love, and moving forward. Or:</p>
<p>Durbe and Yuuma fight. Ryoga disappears. A new threat appears in Heartland City, and if our heroes don't hurry, they might be too late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. three's a crowd

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rangerhitomi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerhitomi/gifts).



> A sequel to and whatever the sun will always sing is you.
> 
> Dedicated to my dearest.

The Barians get drunk once a month at the BARian, and Yuuma isn’t usually invited, but one night Alit calls.

  
“Yuuma!” he says. He’s laughing on-screen. “You should come over. I’ve got tequila milkshakes.”

  
“They’re _disgusting_ , Yuuma, don’t listen to him,” Rio yells from somewhere in the room. Yuuma looks at Alit’s open, smiling face, and weighs it against how angry his parents will be if he goes to his boyfriend’s friends’ alien bar, and then shrugs and gets his wallet out of his bag.

Then he tells Akari he’s going out and he flees.

It’s a warm spring night. Yuuma is still in his school uniform, his tie blue now; Shark graduated last year, and now Yuuma gets to enjoy the social capital that comes with having a boyfriend in college. His parents have loosened up about Shark, and his curfew, even if they’ve banned them from having sleepovers.

He’s the only student on a train dotted with weary businessmen. He feels very young, sometimes.

It’s not such a bad feeling.

The BARian isn’t well-lit from outside, but the front door is unlocked. Yuuma lets himself in and finds himself in a room made of dark wood, the bar gleaming, the Barians sprawled out on barstools and giant red couches, with Alit in an apron polishing wineglasses behind the bar. He also has a blender and some chopped fruit.

“Milkshake?” he asks.

Yuuma opens his mouth to accept, but everyone else in the room makes a disgusted face or noise, and he laughs nervously.

“No thanks…”

“Your loss!” Alit pours the contents of the blender into a wineglass — it’s frothy and white — and squeezes a lime into it. Then he downs it in one shot and gags.

“I warned you,” Shark says, and Yuuma is drawn to him immediately — he’s sitting by himself in an armchair, a half-empty bottle next to him — and he goes to sit on the arm of Shark’s chair beside him.

“You’re drinking Everclear straight out of the bottle,” Alit protests.

Shark shrugs. Yuuma doesn’t know what Everclear is, but from the look on Alit’s face it might be worse than whatever he made in the blender.

“It’s the only thing that works.”

“Why do you drink, Nasch?” Durbe asks. “It makes you morose.” He says every word carefully, like speaking is hard. The bottle next to him is completely empty.

Shark doesn’t answer him. Instead he takes a long pull from the bottle, and then pulls Yuuma into his lap. Yuuma yells in surprise as he tumbles off the arm; Shark ignores that, wrapping both arms around him from behind, burying his face in Yuuma’s hair.

He’s not usually that affectionate in front of people. Whatever he’s drinking must be working.

Yuuma leans into him. “Hi.”

“Hey.”

“What’re you doing?”

“Forgetting.” Shark gestures to the bottle loosely.

“Eh?” That sounds terrible. Yuuma turns, and Shark’s eyes are huge, and he leans in. “Why?”

“Because I suck.” Shark’s breath is warm against his face, even if it smells like alcohol.

“You don’t suck,” Yuuma says. He smiles.

Shark smirks suddenly. He leans in even more, his voice dropping to a whisper only Yuuma can hear. “I could, though. If you wanted.”

Yuuma chokes loudly. He pulls back, flushed, and Shark doesn’t let go of him, so he lets himself be drawn against his chest. He can’t believe Shark just said that to him.

Shark is quiet after that, content to let Yuuma sit on him while he broods, and Yuuma stays with him until he has to rush out to catch the last train home. He sits on the hard plastic seat, alone in the train car, and stares at his own reflection.

_I could, though. If you wanted._

He thinks about that. He tries not to, but the image lingers deliciously.

+++++

“Ah, Yuuma, happy birthday!” Mirai says. “Wait a minute.”

“Sure.” Yuuma frowns at her; he’s already deep in his breakfast, bemoaning his own laziness. He slept in, through Grandma’s famous omelets (luckily, it’s his birthday, so Grandma saved him some), and only woke up when Akari came in to complain that he was too old for this as she poured ice water over his head. 

(“Do you really want him stuck downstairs with Mom while he waits for you?”

The answer was a definite no, so Yuuma dragged himself out of bed.) 

“You’re going out with Ryoga today?”

Yuuma grinned. “He said he had a surprise for me.”

“How lovely.” Mirai puts her hand on his shoulder. She smiles at him, and Yuuma’s hopes rise. Maybe his parents are finally coming around. “But do you know what else is a surprise?”

Dreams of a shiny new duel disk float through Yuuma’s mind. It is his birthday… “No?”

“Sexually transmitted diseases!”

His chopsticks clatter to the floor.

“Mom!”

“Yuuma, at your age, I know you have certain...urges…”

“No,” Yuuma says firmly. He does not think about the night before last, and sitting in Shark’s lap with his breath warm against Yuuma’s ear. This isn’t happening, he decides, because the world is a good place and wouldn’t allow him to suffer through this conversation.

“Urges that only Ryoga can fulfill. But sweetheart, you’re still young, so there’s no need to rush into things.”

“But I don’t have any urges!”

“And there’s no pressure to have penetrative sex immediately!”

The front door opens. No, Yuuma thinks, if his dad comes in, he will die. 

“We’re not having any sex!”

Shark chokes loudly. 

“Uh.” 

Yuuma determinedly does not look at him, and wishes it had been his dad after all. He closes his eyes, hoping when he opens them this will prove to be a dream. It is not. This is the worst birthday ever.

“Ryoga! Come in, I want to talk to you.” Mirai gestures him in. Shark looks at him desperately, and Yuuma just shakes his head; it’s too late. His mom has that look on her face, the one that says she knows perfectly well what he’s thinking and he had better stop thinking it, if he knows what’s good for him. Although why she has to bring this up now, when Shark is right there --

“Here.” She hands Shark a box of condoms. Extra small. “I --”

Yuuma’s mouth falls open. Mom!

“These are the wrong size,” Ryoga says, in a voice that is much calmer than he looks. “Also, what the --”

Yuuma’s gaze drops involuntarily, down Shark’s stomach to his thighs to -- 

He makes a horrible noise. His mom is still there! 

“He’s only seventeen,” Mirai says disapprovingly. Shark opens his mouth to respond, and Yuuma cuts him off by flinging himself onto his arm. 

He shoves Shark back out of the house, slams the door behind them, and ignores his mother yelling at them out the window about his curfew. Shark looks confused, but he lets Yuuma push him to his bike and hands Yuuma the spare helmet without comment.

“Quick,” Yuuma says, shoving the helmet onto his head. The visor snaps down automatically, tinting the world pink. “Let’s go, before she starts talking about urges again --”

The sound of the engine drowns out the end of Yuuma’s sentence. 

Shark drives him away from Heartland City, out into the suburbs, down by the end of the Green Line train that Yuuma never takes. The sky is seemingly bigger out here, and Shark slows to a somewhat reasonable speed as he drives through the residential areas. 

Yuuma clings to him in anticipation. He knows there’s no danger of him falling off, but he pretends not to, if only to have an excuse to hold Shark in public. They pull up in front of a wide set of iron gates, behind which Yuuma can see flowers and trees, and hear birdsong.

The sign on the gates reads Heartland Botanical Gardens.

“We’re here,” Shark says.

Yuuma stares up at the gates. He’s a little confused. There’s nothing wrong with gardens, exactly, but it’s not Shark’s style. Or Yuuma’s style.  
Shark hasn’t said ‘happy birthday’ to him yet.

“It looks cool,” Yuuma lies.

Shark looks oddly at him. Then he hesitantly offers Yuuma his arm -- not his hand, but his actual elbow -- and waits.

Yuuma links his arm through Shark’s and smiles at him. Shark doesn’t say anything else, just leads him through the open gate, but Yuuma knows he must remember it’s Yuuma’s birthday now. 

The path they take through the gardens is empty, and Yuuma tries to identify the birds and the plants as they walk. There are butterflies everywhere, and he recognizes a few tree species, a couple useful herbs, a poisonous plant he once accidentally ate. The rest of the plants are foreign to him, most with huge, bright flowers. Kotori would like it here, Yuuma thinks idly. He should tell her about it, later.

It’s quiet, but it’s peaceful. The sunlight looks good on Shark, and his arm is warm, and he made the effort to pick Yuuma up and rescue him from his mom, and it’s his birthday. Yuuma leans into him, tries to walk closer, and they both stumble. 

“Look. Chilis.” Yuuma points at a plant with peppers hanging off it. “Wanna see who eat who can eat one without crying?”

“No,” Shark says firmly.

“Are you scared?”

“The last we did this you ran around yelling your mouth was on fire and hit your face on the wall!”

“Shaaark,” Yuuma whines, not because he means it but to watch Shark’s face twitch.

“Those aren’t even spicy. Come on.”

The urge to make a joke about how Shark watches too many cooking shows is strong, but Yuuma suppresses it.

They pass a white gazebo off the path, and Yuuma hears voices in the distance. Shark jerks on his arm to get him to stop.

“Wait, hang on.” He pulls Yuuma across the grass, into the gazebo, where there’s a bench. He makes Yuuma sit down. Then he pulls a white envelope out of his pocket, Yuuma’s name scrawled across the front, and shoves it into his hands.

“Happy birthday,” Shark says.

Visions of rare cards dance through Yuuma’s mind. Yuuma shakes the envelope near his ear. Then he rips it open.

“...are these season passes?”

“They’re holding the World Championships in Heartland this year,” Shark says, too casually, like he hasn’t noticed that Yuuma is practically bouncing off the bench. Like he hasn’t noticed Yuuma is smiling so hard his face actually hurts. But he’s smirking. “After the Regionals and Nationals are over.”

“This is the best gift ever!”

“Box seats,” Shark adds.

Yuuma shoves the envelope into his vest pocket before he tackles Shark in a tight hug. 

“I thought you forgot,” he mumbles into Shark’s shoulder, and Shark probably rolls his eyes before he pushes Yuuma off him.

“Don’t be stupid.”

“Then --” Yuuma looks around the gazebo and the flowering trees and the greenery with new eyes. “Are you being romantic?”

“No!”

“You have feelings,” Yuuma says gleefully. It’s even better than he had hoped.

Shark covers his face with his hand. “Urgh.” He shoves his hair out of his face. It’s getting kind of long; Yuuma likes it, but it drives Shark crazy. He’s probably going to break and go for a haircut soon. 

“Anyway.” Shark takes Yuuma’s hand. “Let’s keep going.”

The path goes into a stand of trees; branches touch overhead, making a canopy that casts a network of shadows over the dirt path and over Shark’s face. The voices that Yuuma heard earlier are getting louder. Someone must be having a party. Maybe a wedding, Yuuma thinks, and his face burns, and he looks down.

Shark doesn’t say anything. He must not have noticed. _Stupid,_ Yuuma thinks, _I’m not -- I still have to graduate and stuff._

They start walking a little faster. Yuuma almost trips over a thick root, and wonders what the hurry is.

Then they turn the corner, and all of Yuuma’s friends scream. “Surprise!”

“Happy birthday!” Kotori lunges at him, and Yuuma swings her around. She’s wearing a piece of pink styrofoam on her forehead that’s shaped like his hair.  
In fact...all of his friends are wearing them. Even the Barians, including Durbe and Mizael, are wearing them. Durbe looks kind of stupid. Yuuma feels bad for thinking it, but it’s true.

He’s surprised they came -- but Shark is here -- and he smiles and waves at them.

They don’t wave back. Yuuma’s face falls.

“Here, blow this out,” Cathy says. She shoves a plate with a slice of cake on it and a lit candle sticking out of the top in his face. “Everyone’s hungry!”

_I wish that things were always this good._ Yuuma blows out the candle. Cathy hands him the plate; the cake is rich and chocolatey. Astral has always been confused about desserts in general -- are pancakes filled with pan? -- and Yuuma looks over his shoulder to ask Astral if he likes chocolate before he remembers.

_And I wish Astral was here._

Maybe next weekend he’ll go to Astral World and visit. He can just sleep through school for a few days; it’ll be fine. He doesn’t have any exams. Probably. Kotori will take notes for him.

  
He polishes off his cake while Cathy and Takashi distribute the rest of the slices, and Tokunosuke and Alit pile up all the presents on a table. The sight of so many brightly wrapped boxes and overflowing gift bags immediately cheers Yuuma up. Someone pushes him into a chair that’s got three balloons tied to the back of it -- yellow, blue, and red, just like the three worlds -- and plops a crown on his head.

Shark leans against the back of Yuuma’s chair, his arm against the back of Yuuma’s neck.

Everyone gathers around. Kotori and III are arguing over whose gift is getting opened first. 

“Come on, your majesty,” Shark says. “The one on top is from me.”

“Wait, you got me another present?” Yuuma reaches for the small box. The wrapping paper is shark patterned. Yuuma sometimes wonders if Shark knows about some kind of shark-themed department store he secretly buys everything he owns from. 

“Shut up.”

He tears off the paper. It’s the new handheld from Fintendo -- the 4ND -- in bright red. Yuuma has an older model, maybe three years old, that he got used. He’s been watching Tetsuo play new games enviously for the past two weeks, but even with both parents around money is still tight sometimes. They still have debt from the period his mom and dad were gone to be paid off. 

Yuuma swallows. “Shark…”

“Shut up,” Shark says again. “It was on sale, I had to go buy the Sharknado limited edition anyway.” He pats Yuuma’s head. 

Shark normally isn’t this extravagant. It is his birthday, Yuuma reminds himself. And it isn’t like Shark can’t afford it, it is just his last birthday gift to Shark was booster packs and a scarf Obomi helped him knit, and Yuuma sometimes feels…

He pushes all that aside. 

“Me next!” Tetsuo tosses him an envelope. It’s got Yuuma’s name scrawled messily on the front. 

Yuuma slits the top and produces a sheet of paper with a timestamp and some numbers printed on it. “What is it?”

“I paid to get us on the waiting list for World Championship tickets this year!” Tetsuo beams. “If we get a good lottery number, we can even get decent seats.”  
Yuuma’s stomach sinks. 

“What?”

He rubs the back of his neck. “Ah...Shark actually already bought me a ticket…”

“But the only tickets available are --” Tetsuo stops, midsentence. “Right. Sorry.”

“Testuo --”

“Forgot you had your sugar daddy now,” he snaps and he rips the envelope out of Yuuma’s hands.

“I don’t —what?” Yuuma blinks, blindsided. “What does that even mean?”

Everyone is quiet. Yuuma tenses — whatever it is, it must be bad — and goes on, “I didn’t know you were gonna get them, Tetsuo, I’m sorry.”

Tetsuo has been kind of distant lately. Yuuma doesn’t want to fight with him, but ‘I’m sorry’ still comes out harsher than he likes.

“Whatever.” Tetsuo drops the envelope on the table and picks up his plate. He shoves a forkful of cake into his mouth. Yuuma waits for him to say something else, but he doesn’t, even thought he just insulted Yuuma for no reason.

Yuuma opens the rest of his gifts. 

Video game, from Kotori and Cathy. Cards, from Tokunosuke and Takashi. Anna gives him a mechanical…thing, which Yuuma makes a note to test out later because it looks dangerous and awesome. The Barians all give him a box together, which Yuuma opens to find two thick history texts. Durbe’s choice, he bets, and he pretends to like them even though they look like boring, watered-down school stuff because as his mom says, it’s the thought that counts.

Secretly he thinks nothing compares to Shark’s gift.

The cake is really good, and between all of them they polish it off. Then they pair off for an impromptu duel tournament, and Yuuma wins because it’s his birthday and he’s the best, and as they clean up and go their separate ways, it’s perfect.

Or it would have been, Yuuma thinks, only Tetsuo won’t talk to him.

Kotori walks with him and Shark back to the parking lot. The Barians (Durbe) don’t.

“Hey, Kotori.” 

“Mm?”

“That thing Tetsuo said —” He stops. Kotori’s eyes are wide, and she almost drops the pile of gifts she’s carrying for him. “What’d he mean?”

“Eh…” Kotori looks at Shark. 

Shark snorts. “Ignore him. He’s being an idiot.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Kotori agrees.

“But —” Yuuma hesitates. “He won’t talk to me. I didn’t even do anything.”

Kotori sighs. “He’s just going through a lot right now, Yuuma. He’ll get over it.”

She doesn’t answer Yuuma’s question, so he’s going to have to look it up, later. Right now, though, he lets it go. Shark helps him load his stuff into the back of the bike, and Kotori waves goodbye as she goes off to catch a train, and Yuuma holds onto Shark’s hand until he gets the hint and kisses him.

“I love you,” Yuuma tells him.

Even in the dusk, he can see the blush spread across Shark’s face.

“Did you have a good night?” Mirai asks when he comes through the front door.

Yuuma dumps his stuff on the kitchen table and grins. “Yeah,” he says. Mostly he means it.

+++++

“Yuuma is coming?”

“He wanted to see the exhibit.”

“Tch,” Durbe says, in exactly the same way Nasch does when he’s irritated. Nasch scowls deeply at him, but since Durbe admits to nothing, he can't complain.  
He looked forward to this afternoon at the Heartland World History Museum, and now it’s ruined. He’ll have to spend it being carefully civil to Yuuma while he endures Yuuma’s forced niceness, while Nasch glares at him for not being as in love with Yuuma as he is. 

He is not jealous. He and Nasch’s romantic relationship was over a long time ago.

And he is not being petty by refusing to play along with Yuuma’s faked kindness. Durbe doesn't believe in lying unless the ends really justify the means, and he doesn’t like Yuuma, so he doesn’t care if his coolness bothers him.

He adjusts his scarf in the mirror while Nasch hunts down his keys and his jacket. 

“Do you have your museum pass?”

“Yes.”

Nasch nods to himself as he clears off the kitchen counter and unearths his keys. He shoves them into his pocket, then stops. He picks up the newspaper he set aside.

“Nasch?”

“Did you see this?” Nasch offers him the paper.

_Mysterious Amnesia Strikes Duelists Once More!_ Durbe scans the article. It is the same as the incident from four years ago; a duelist has been attacked in the middle of the night, and found unconscious. Nothing was stolen, but they can’t remember what they were doing. And they no longer remembered anything about dueling.

“Another one…” Durbe sets the paper down. “It’s suspicious. Did Merag feel anything?”

“She’d have said, wouldn’t she?” 

“We’ll have to investigate.” 

“Yeah.” Nasch looks troubled. “Don’t tell Yuuma about this.”

Durbe blinks. “What?”

“He’ll worry. I don’t want him getting involved.” Nasch shrugs. 

Privately, Durbe thinks that Yuuma of all people should be involved. But he agrees. Two incidents, four years apart, with no casualties, isn’t really anything to worry about. 

They head out the door. Nasch is still obviously preoccupied with his concerns for Yuuma; he barely responds to Durbe’s attempts at conversation. At least the drive to the museum is short.

And Yuuma is, of course, late. Durbe hopes that this menas he’ll get some time in the museum with Nasch alone, but no, Nasch insists on waiting. They stand around in the atrium and Durbe examines the life size reproduction of a Roman galley in the center of the room. He watches Nasch stare the murals on the ceiling out of the corner of his eye.

If he and Mizael were here together, they would already be in the Myths and Legends of Ancient China exhibit and Mizael would be complaining about inaccuracies.   
The thought brings a smile to Durbe’s face, and he is happy right up until the moment he turns around and sees Yuuma rush through the entrance with his crumpled museum pass in hand.

“Shark!”

“Yuuma.” Nasch accepts a hug from Yuuma awkwardly. 

Does he not know how uncomfortable Nasch is with public displays of affection, or does Yuuma not care, Durbe wonders.

“Hi, Durbe!”

“Hello.”

They stare at each other.

Durbe turns around. “I’m going to look at the special exhibitions. See you later.”

“I wanna see the special exhibitions, too.” He heard Yuuma say to Nasch behind him.

“Great. You can go together, I’ll meet you guys later.” 

“But—” Durbe stops. Yuuma is now beside him, looking at him hopefully. Worse, Nasch is glaring at the back of his head, Durbe can guess, and will be pissed and hurt if Durbe refuses.

Pissed he wouldn’t care about, but hurt…Durbe resigns himself to a wasted afternoon. He’ll drag one of the others down here later. 

“Come on.” 

Durbe starts walking again, pushing through the crowds. Yuuma follows at his heels, with the occasional “Excuse me!” or “Coming through!”

“Hey, Durbe, wait up.” Yuuma grabs at his arm. “You wanna stop and ride the simulator?”

“No, Yuuma.” He isn’t a child. “Ancient Weaponry or The Language of Trees?”

“What?”

“Which exhibition are we seeing first?”

“The tree one.”

The least interesting one. Durbe has read the description on the museum’s webpage; it sounds pseudo-scientific and fanciful at best. Of course Yuuma wants to see it.  
Or…Durbe frowns as he actually looks at Yuuma’s face. He’s staring at the entrace to Ancient Weaponry and looking a little green. Maybe he just doesn’t want to look at weapons, and trees are a safer choice.

Durbe knows it’s wrong to think badly of Yuuma for it, knows trauma manifests differently for different people, knows that his comfort with weapons is the result of exposure and that he still cringes when he watches swordfights on television sometimes.

He knows all this and the words come out of his mouth anyway.

“If you wanted to be babied, you should have gone with Nasch.”

“What?”

“I said —”

“I heard you,” Yuuma growls.

Durbe has rarely seen Yuuma angry. Something about it spurs him on. 

“You,” he says, “are not good enough for him.”

“I —”

“You don’t love him as much as he loves you.”

“How would you even know? You’re too busy being a jerk all the time —”

“At least I’m not so insecure I’m incapable to handling one person’s dislike —”

“I’m not — I don’t —” Yuuma’s expression is bewildered.

“Yes, that’s extremely articulate!” Durbe is screaming.

“I hate you! I don’t know why Shark is friends with you!”

“Probably because I use his real name!”

“Shark is his real name!”

“God, you really are a child. I would ask what it is about you that attracts him, but I know it isn’t your looks, and frankly you don’t have any other skills, so I have to guess it’s just your dumb luck —”

Yuuma punches him in the face.

Durbe staggers backwards, hand on his jaw. He wasn’t expecting that, not from Yuuma, and now they’ve drawn the attention of a small crowd and two security officers.  
And then Nasch appears.

“What the fuck are you guys doing?”

Durbe knows he should say something, but now nothing comes out. He opends his mouth, closes it, opens it again. He hates Yuuma in this moment.

“Shark,” Yuuma begins. “Uh…”

“Did you just punch Durbe in the face?”

“Yes?”

“Why?”

“Because he’s an asshole and I hate him,” Yuuma yells. He turns bright red. And then, mercifully, he runs away like the coward he is. Durbe considers yelling after him about the headline from this morning, and decides he’s been punched enough.

Nasch stares at him.

“What?” he asks. “I—I’m going to the Ancient Weapons exhibit.”

“Fuck off,” Nasch replies, and he stalks off in the direction Yuuma went.

Durbe really does go to the Ancient Weapons exhibit, but he keeps seeing Nasch’s expression of hurt superimposed over the glass.

+++++

Yuuma is sleeping fitfully, and the first buzz of his d-gazer wakes him. He answers it before it can vibrate a second time.

“Shark?” 

“It’s Durbe.”

Something cold lodges in the pit of Yuuma’s stomach. 

“What happened?”

“Is Nasch there?”

“He went home awhile ago.” After they had a fight and Yuuma threw him out.

“He’s not here. What time did he leave?”

“Seven?” Yuuma is guessing. He wasn’t watching the time. “What happened?”

There’s talking in the background. Durbe is asking a question. 

“You were the last one to see him, then. He’s missing.”

“Shark is missing?”

“Get down here,” Durbe says, and Yuuma, halfway out of his hammock already, barely mumbles his assent into the phone before hanging up.


	2. missing in action

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy birthday, rangerhitomi!

Everyone else is already there when Yuuma arrives at Shark’s apartment. The other Barians are all there, and so is Kaito with Orbital 7, and there are the three Arclights with Byron up on videophone. Durbe is standing in the center of the living room, his d-gazer at his ear.

“Pick up…damn you, Nasch, pick up…” He drop the d-gazer onto the table. “Nothing.”

“What happened?” Yuuma asks. “Where’s Shark?”

Durbe opens his mouth to speak, and then shakes his head. “Merag, can you —”

“Right.” Rio appears from somewhere, a map of the city in her hands that she tosses to Alit and Gilag at the kitchen table before she makes Yuuma sit down beside her on the sofa. “You remember, four years ago, there was an incident. A duelist who was attacked in the middle of the night and ended up with some kind of amnesia.”

Shark had broken up with him that week. Yuuma could hardly forget. “Yeah, but…”

“There was another one in the paper this morning.” She hands him the front page.  “Nasch knew about it. He went to the museum with you and Durbe, and Durbe hasn’t seen him since. I haven’t seen him since before that. He hasn’t called and spoken to anyone…” she trailed off. “And you?”

“He came over after he went to the museum. We talked.” Yuuma hesitates — this is embarrassing, he’s so stupid — but he does go on. “We had a fight and he left. It was right before dinner. Um…maybe seven?”

“So he was fine at seven. His bed wasn’t slept in. I guess he didn’t make it home.”

“I didn’t know about the duelist attack,” Yuuma mumbled. He glances down at the headline. “I wouldn’t have let him leave…”

But if Shark had known, then why —

“He knew, but he didn’t want you to worry,” Durbe spat.

“Enough, Durbe,” Rio said.

“But he —”

“Nasch knew the risk. He would have just done what he wanted. He’s an idiot that way.”

“He would,” Durbe agreed.

 _I should say something,_ Yuuma thought, but nothing was coming to mind. _I should be brave. Why is everything shaking?_

“Yuuma, are you alright?” Alit asked.

_Oh. That’s me._

“I’m fine,” he whispered.

Kaito turned around. “He was dueling at eight forty-five.”

“What?”

“Against who?”

“I don’t know. They’re unregistered. I can’t even tell if he won.” Kaito sounded furious. “But his duel disk and his d-gazer are sitting in a dumpster outside this building.”

“They knew who he was,” Durbe says, as Rio says, “But that doesn’t make sense.”

“Why?” Yuuma asks.

“Because he could manifest his Barian duel disk,” Gilag says.

Kaito and V are whispering. “Orbital, go check the dumpster.”

“Why?” Yuuma asks again, and he wishes he could think of something less useless to say.

“If they dumped his disk, they might have dumped other things.”

Kaito doesn’t say ‘like his body’ but it’s all Yuuma hears. He can see it in his mind’s eye, all Nasch’s terrible memories of death, the whole army shot to pieces while he wept —

He blinks. Everyone is staring at him.

“They’d wouldn’t have been able to hurt him,” Rio murmurs. “They wouldn’t have. He’s Nasch.”

It is very, very hard to believe in Shark right then, lost as Yuuma is in his own guilt and fear. But Shark always believes in him, even when Yuuma has no idea what he is doing (admittedly, that is him most of the time) so Yuuma owes him the effort. He tells himself Shark is strong.

And Shark promised they would go watch the Nationals together, and Shark doesn’t lie, so obviously he’s alive, and he will come back. Or Yuuma will find him.

Orbital 7 comes back hold Shark’s duel disk and his Barian crest. Rio snatches both up and puts them on. Yuuma wants to ask for it, and he can see Durbe’s fingers twitching, but they both don’t.

“No deck case,” Durbe says.

“No body,” IV says, and someone hits him loudly.

“Why take his deck but not the crest?”

“Why kidnap Ryoga at all?”

Yuuma wonders that himself. He’s pretty sure no one else could safely use Shark’s deck or his crest without his permission (and he’s glad, somehow, that they didn’t take the crest, didn’t take Shark’s heart). And Yuuma can barely get Shark to hold hands in public, so he’s not sure threatening him or kidnapping would do anything except piss him off.

No, it would have made much more sense to kidnap _Yuuma —_

He swallows. But he says nothing.

“Maybe they wanted to make him duel,” Alit offers aloud. “So he’d need his deck.”

“They’d need to get him a black market disk,” Kaito mutters. “That might be traceable. Orbital 7 —”

“Yes, sir!”

“I’ll look, too,” Gilag says. “I still have some underground dueling contacts.”

“Then the rest of us need to pair off and start patrolling. If they’re looking for duelists, we’ll run into them if we make ourselves targets,” Rio decides. She points. “Alit, go with Gilag — no, that’s too obvious. Alit with me. Gilag with Kaito. Durbe with Yuuma. Thomas, you can take both your brothers, we don’t want people to associate us with you.”

Durbe opens his mouth and then closes it.

Yuuma ignore him.

Everyone else gives their assent, although Mizael stares at Durbe while he straps on his disk and downloads a map of the city onto his d-gazer. They are together, Yuuma remembers, or at least Shark thinks they are.

They move towards the door at the same time.

Once they are alone in the hallway outside the apartment, Durbe turns to him.

“Don’t get in my way,” he says, and then he started walking.

+++++

The first two hours of patrol are pointless. They barely see any O-bots, let alone any duelists, even though they revisit the scene of the first incident and check the area around the dumpster carefully.

Yuuma even climbs into the trash and digs around, but he finds nothing but old food wrappers, banana peels, and filth.

He has to walk around smelly and disgusting for the next hour while Durbe keeps wrinkling his nose and leaning away from him.

The others check in every hour; none of them find anything.

The sky is beginning to lighten, and Yuuma’s eyelids are drooping, when he hears yelling from somewhere nearby.

“…duel!”

“Over there!” Yuuma yells, and he takes off without bothering to see if Durbe is following.

The noise leads him to a nondescript grey building with tinted glass double doors. There’s no signs on the building or any open windows, and the doors are locked. But the screaming is coming from inside, and it’s getting louder.

“Move,” Durbe barks. Then he flicks a hand and blows up the front doors.

A shard of glass slices open Yuuma’s face.

“Let’s go!”

Inside the dark lobby there’s a duel going on. Yuuma doesn’t recognize either of the duelists; he hates himself for being relieved. One of them is wearing a black and white private school uniform from Heartland High’s rival. The other duelist is…

The other duelist is smiling widely. He’s the enemy, because the high school student he’s fighting is crying and doubled over in pain.

“Jon Lo,” Durbe hisses from behind him.

“What?”

“That’s Jon Lo. He’s an exchange student, he won the North American Regionals last year.”

“Who’s the other one?” Yuuma asks impatiently.

“I don’t know.”

Jon Lo finally peters out and drops to the ground, unconcious. The other duelist starts to move towards him. He’s still msiling.

“Hey! Get away from him!”

Yuuma tries to run towards them, but he hits an invisible wall, only a meter away, and crashes backwards. He wipes the blood off his face with his sleeve as he watches.

The green duelist kneels down and lays his hand on Jon Lo’s forehead. He whispers something Yuuma cannot hear.

“So, you’re the famous Yuuma Tsukumo,” he drawls. “I’m Viridian. And soon, I’m going to steal your dueling.”

“What? Is that what you did to him?”

“But don’t worry. Not tonight.”

“Where is Nasch?” Durbe demands. “Where?”

“Good night, Yuuma,” Viridian says. He waves, and then he turns and slowly, slowly walks away while Durbe punches the barrier and Yuuma seethes.

He doesn’t know what ‘stealing dueling’ means, but he knows it’s bad. And he’s not going to let anyone else get hurt, right in front of him.

For once he and Durbe agree. When the barrier finally dissipates, he gestures to the darkened lobby.

“We should look for clues.”

“Yeah,” Yuuma agrees. “And we need to call an ambulance.”

He dials emergency services while Durbe pokes around; Jon Lo still has a pulse. Yuuma can feel his heart hammering under his hand.

“Sorry,” he whispers.

Durbe is swearing somewhere behind him; things are crashing as he searches.

Yuuma should join him, for Shark, but he waits with Jon Lo until he hears the sirens.

+++++

“A school?”

Durbe tosses the pamplet down onto the table triumphantly. He’d dug it out of a trash can _(take that, Yuuma)_. Didn’t he keep searching for Nasch for years and years after he vanished? He will find him.

“The rest of the building was blocked off by those invisible barriers, but there was an office open. It’s supposedly a dueling academy.”

“So what?” IV asks. “It’s probably empty. Those went out of vogue years ago.”

The fact that they had existed at all intrigues Durbe. He is still sometime shocked by how common dueling is in this new world — it had been a rare thing back when eh was first alive.

“This one was open until last year. And it’s for ‘gifted duelists’.” Durbe tapped the pamphlet. “I think they mean duelists like us. Ones with powers.”

“Like the psychic duelists they reported in Neo Domino,” Kaito muses. “I’ll call my father.”

He steps out to make the call. Durbe finally lets himself sit down — he feels so wasteful resting — and stares at the ceiling. He’ll have to look up whatever Kaito is talking about, but ‘psychic duelist’ already sounds threatening to him. Of course, it would be arrogant to assume that every duelist with talent draws it from the same source they do. Durbe’ research into the origins of Duel Monsters has already shown him a thousand possibilities.

He should ask Yuuma, or Kazuma, what they know. Their knowledge is bound to surpass his own, even if the idea stings Durbe’s pride.

“Do we know what happened to Jon Lo?”

“They took him to the hospital,” Yuuma tells Rio. “He was alive.”

Taken by some supernaturally gifted duelists. That doesn’t really explain why they would take Nasch; his powers wouldn’t be so easily stolen, or duplicated. Even among the Barians Nasch is a special case. And he would have put up a fight.

But it’s better than nothing, and his eyelids are heavy. The others will pick up from here. One of them might be able to explore the old school better. Durbe is so tired…

…and Yuuma is already asleep on the sofa, sitting in Nasch’s usual spot, so Durbe feels entirely justified in closing his eyes. Just for a few moments. He’ll look for Nasch ( _Nasch, where are you this time?_ ) afterwards.

+++++

He doesn’t know where he is when he wakes up.

A bedroom, he thinks as he looks around. There’s a bed and a table and a glass of water. That means bedroom to him.

Whose room, though? His room?

Does he have a room?

…does he have a name?

“There you are,” someone coos from the open doorway. “I’m Carmine. You’re Ryoga. Welcome home.”

 _Ryoga_. That sounds right, but it also sounds wrong.


	3. here's the show

Ochre is sitting on the ratty sofa when Carmine returns with a new set of clothes (blue, to match Ryoga’s eyes) and a black market duel disk. The bedroom door is shut the way he left it.

He asks anyway. “Is he in there?”

“He is.” Ochre flips the page of her fashion magazine. “He’s been quiet.”

Carmine isn’t sure if that is a good sign or not. He ended the duel early, and that means there will be residual memories left over. Already he’s been forced to keep using Ryoga’s real name, instead of the code name he spent so much time picking out. And now he has to adapt around anything Ryoga happens to remember.

A bad start, but maybe it can still work.

 He pries open the duel disk on the table and starts removing the location tracking components while Ochre watches; she snickers when he cuts himself and goes back to her magazine.

“Did he ask for me?”

“Of course not.”

“He will.” Carmine sweeps bloodred bangs out of his eyes with a confidence he doesn’t quite feel. “I’ll see him now.”

Ryoga is still in the room, but he’s gotten out of bed and is sitting at the small table, picking through the deck Carmine made for him. It’s the same basic archetype as his real deck, just neutered down to manageable levels. Carmine is keeping some of the more interesting cards for himself; he doesn’t know exactly what an “Over-Hundred Number” is, but he thinks it would make a good addition to his deck.

“Ryoga? Oh, you’re up.”

“Who are you?”

“Carmine. Don’t you remember?”

“No.” Ryoga frowns. “Carmine. Tch.”

“We’re back at base right now. You didn’t seem fit for work after what those…animals did to you.”

“Those animals?”

This is his first real conversation with Ryoga. He wishes it was a little more personal, a little more intimate, but no, it’s just him feeding Ryoga nonsense. Well, there will time for fun later.

“Don’t worry about that now. You need rest.”

“I’m fine,” Ryoga says curtly, and without any gratitude at all. “Tell me what happened.”

“No, I don’t think I will. Not until you’ve rested properly.”

Ryoga actually snarls at him before speaking.

“I told you I was fine!” He stands up. “What the hell is going on? I…”

Without the jacket, Carmine can see he has nice shoulders. Ryoga looks a little confused, still, and the last thing Carmine wants is for him to try to leave the room or worse yet, the hideout. He sighs.

“You ran into that Tsukumo kid and he ripped the memories out of your head. I’ll bet you have a headache.”

When Ryoga doesn’t respond, Carmine flips on the light and watches him wince with satisfaction.

“Rest more. I’ll take care of you, darling.”

“What the _fuck —”_

Carmine strolls out of the room and lets the door close behind him. He locks it from the outside and drops the key onto Ochre’s magazine.

“Watch him. I’m going hunting.”

“Come back soon. I want my turn.”

“Understood.”

+++++

Viridian hunts twice more that night before he returns to the hideout. Ochre is finishing the last of a stack of fashion magazine, one foot tapping the floor impatiently; Carmine must be out. Viridian wants to make another deck using Jon Lo’s cards, so he ignores her and takes the seat across from her at the table.

So far, he has precautionary measures prepared against Yuuma and against Ryoga (although Carmine insists he won’t need that one). But Kaito’s deck is proving more difficult, which was why Viridian went after Jon Lo in the first place.

The new cards and Jon Lo’s considerable skills help him craft what he, if he does say so himself, sees as art. An anti-deck, designed to reduce Kaito to nothing. And with Kaito’s skills added to his own, Viridian knows he’ll be the strongest duelist in Japan. Hell, he may be the strongest in Asia at that point.

The idea thrills him, and when he finishes the deck he adds it to his belt.

“Watch him. I’m going out,” Ochre says. She has five minutes left on her watch, but Viridian knows she doesn’t care and won’t stay if he points it out.

Besides, if Carmine goes off the rails, he’ll need her. There are too many unaccounted for fellow classmates running around for him to wander alone. Viridian idly wishes, again, that Carmine wasn’t so prone to foolishness.

He stares at the door. Ryoga Kamishiro…

Viridian had liked the idea of returning to Heartland City. He’d even liked Carmine’s idea of actively looking through the database for interesting targets. But all of this nonsense about Ryoga is getting to him.

Well, he had promised Carmine his help. He gets up, scoops up the key, and unlocks Ryoga’s door.

Ryoga is in there, sitting on the bed with his deck spread out in front of him.

“Oh, there you are. What did you and Carmine do to Ochre? You know how she feels about people having sex where she can hear.” Viridian winks. “Well, I guess you don’t, anymore.”

“What?”

“Carmine said not to tell you, but it seems kind of stupid, pretending he isn’t your boyfriend.”

_“What?”_

“When are you going to start hunting again?”

“What the hell are you blabbing about? I don’t even know any of you!”

“Guess I’ve tired you out. Later.” Viridian ducks out before Ryoga can get up and punch him, and locks the door behind him.

Alright, so there are some benefits to having Ryoga around.

+++++

One. 

Ochre tosses her opponent across the road, and he slams back into the wall of the nearest building. A cloud of dust flies up; a few chips of stone falls to the ground. Blood spatters. She hopes he isn’t dead; that will be inconvenient.

Her power is growing more refined.

When her opponent stays down, she loses patience and turns off her duel disk. She rifles through his cards; nothing of value. He is wearing an earring she likes, though, and she takes it.

Two.

Fire spurts and sputters all over the asphalt. Her opponent covers her mouth with her shirtsleeve, gasping for air through the smoke. Ochre can only dimly see her through the gloom; everything is cast in a beautiful orange light.

The fire burns and crackles, but does not spread. Ochre draws it into a circle around her victim as the hypoxia takes hold and she falls to the ground. Her monster flickers, turns to look at her, vanishes.

Another too-short duel. Ochre puts out the fire, checks her fallen opponent’s deck, and finds again nothing. She takes the girl’s designer handbag after dumping out the contents on the street beside her.

Why do Carmine and Viridian tell her to check herself? Don’t they understand how powerful she is, how strong she is, how precise she is? Maybe they are jealous because she is so much better than they are.

Three.

Well, it doesn’t matter.

Her third opponent flees mid-duel after his arm is throughly burned. Ochre wrinkles her nose at the smell of burnt hair and flesh, but doesn’t follow him; he’s too weak. They’re all too weak for her.

She needs to hunt more — the sun is rising — Ochre snarls and switches off her duel disk and leaves.

+++++

His trading cards are talking to him.

All things considered, Ryoga thinks he should probably be more bothered by that than he is. Instead he’s just irritated. Shark Drake doesn’t have much to say, beyond “accept me, master,” and “I desire your power,”.

Ryoga looks again at the deck, although he doesn’t know why. He just knows these cards and their exact arrangement have secrets. And with his mind so empty, all his memories lost, secrets have taken on a new importance. Or maybe he’s always been this way. He doesn’t know.

Neither Viridian nor Carmine have come back, and the door is still locked. That’s suspicious — if he’s one of them, if he’s safe here, why the hell is he trapped? Ryoga dislikes being told what to do. Especially when the people ordering him around refuse to tell him anything about himself.

He reorders the cards again.

Something is wrong with them.

 _I can remember which trading cards I_ _m supposed to have, but not my last name?_

 _Too weak,_ he decides. _This deck is too weak._

_Why is that so important?_

_Why do I feel like_ _…this has happened before?_

“Ryoga,” Carmine coos from outside the door. “Can I come in?”

“No,” Ryoga barks, and he picks up Aero Shark and stares at it. He reaches, instinctively, for something around his neck.

There’s nothing there.


End file.
